Pastoral Relief and Retreat

I am Pastor at Poquonock Community Church, Congregational (CCCC) in Windsor, CT. My wife Jama and I live in Wetherfield, CT.
We'd like to invite you to Terre Haute -- High Ground -- That's what Jama and I call the retreat space on our property. We offer free intentional get-away retreats. We'll feed you and house you and give you space to be with the Lord. All are welcome; no questions asked.
This blog is my daily devotional journal. I write it because it is so easy to go for weeks without ever taking the time to be alone with God. Writing helps me develop a discipline I need.

Pages

Monday, January 23, 2012

What an idiot

Behold, the LORD has
proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your
salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before
him.”And they shall be called The Holy
People, The Redeemed of the LORD; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City
Not Forsaken.

(Isaiah 62:11-12 ESV)

I worry sometimes that, as “disciples” go, I’m not a very
good example.It isn’t that I don’t love
God.It is that, well… life
happens.And I know there are attitudes
and fears and sins in me that just don’t reflect a life of dependency on
God.This passage brings me up short in
that kind of thinking.

Isaiah has spent much of his great prophecy warning Israel
about their idolatry, their unfaithfulness, and their marrying outsiders.And yet, here, almost at the end his writing,
the major thing God is proclaiming – publishing – in the 7th C. BC
version of TheNew York Times, “I have a love-note for Zion.”

Every once in a while some ardent lover takes out a
full-page ad in The Times as a way of
proposing to his beloved.Imagine
opening the newspaper and seeing “I LOVE you!Marry Me, Darling” in huge, bold print.Did you ever wonder what a full-page ad in a major daily costs?Believe me, it isn’t cheap.Every time someone does that, I laugh my head
off.What an idiot: spending that kind
of money on a proposal.They could have
gone on a honeymoon for what it cost him to buy that ad.

Here’s the message God has for “the daughter of Zion” (read:
Israel):“Your salvation comes!”God sent his only son at great cost to
himself to accomplish salvation for you and me.Buying himself the ability to publish
salvation was, to God, as costly as taking out a full-page ad in The Times would be for you or me.Honestly, if saving you had cost me my life,
I don’t think I’d be talking about you
as “my reward.”

What Jesus “got” in exchange for going to the cross was…
ME?And the worst of it is that he
didn’t get some idealized, perfected ME.He got a messy disciple who can’t seem to get “discipleship” right; who
prefers, as C.S. Lewis says, “everything
else to Him.”Somehow, remarkably, God
looks at me (warts and all), and calls ME “The Holy People, The Redeemed of the
LORD; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.”I especially love the last two: Sought out,
and Not Forsaken.

God is seeking you
out too.He has not forsaken you.To reverse the Lewis quote, he really does
prefer you to everything else.And God
will be mocked and become a laughingstock for love of you.He has published my salvation and yours at the highest cost in the most obvious
way.What an idiot!What love!